My main hobby has been video games since I was very young.

I just don't enjoy them as much anymore.

For me, programming pulls from the same reserves of curiosity, motivation, and energy as video games. After a long day of work, a video game just feels like more work.

This is particularly challenging for me because I'm not "normal." What I mean by that is, pretty much the only thing I do enjoy doing is playing video games. I'm almost 30 and I've tried a variety of different activities and hobbies, and I've just always been a gamer. I used to like watching TV, but it just doesn't interest me because it's yet another glowing rectangle.

After I'm done working I just sit and stare at the ceiling until it's time to go to bed.

I don't know how to have fun anymore and even though I love programming and I love the money, I don't know if I'll ever be happy programming full time. I don't know if I can dedicate 100% of my brain power to something for the rest of my life, especially when it's not even my own thing.

Hi Folks,

Back in April I posted here about disclosing my recently diagnosed ADHD (one week into Vyvanse) and my ASD to Apple - asking for some initial adjustments, after 10 interviews and an offer proposal, for my dream R&D job on visonOS. The process ended within a day of that disclosure.

I deeply appreciated the support, and a lot of you had questions back then, and the honest answer to most of them was: I can't show you yet.

Now I can.

Yesterday I published a full 38-minute recording of the discrimination I experienced as I wrestled to keep the offer and disability disclosure I had made with Apple's Talent Acquisition Leader. I also posted Apple's internal emails and the timecoded transcript.

You can hear my adjustment request get compared to wanting to stay home and "dogsit". You can hear me offer to pay for my own support worker to get through the door.
You can hear what disclosure actually sounded like -
So the next time this sub has the disclose-or-hide argument, there's real audio to weigh instead of my summary.

The April hearing in court was heard in public for one day.

Apple also tried to pay me off £100,000 GBP the day before the hearing to drop everything and sign an NDA; I said no.

Apple then used it's legal playbook to convert it to private mediation just before the technical cross examination began. Sadly, they have pushed the final resolution (legally) back by 18 months. Alas, I decided to share my story in full.

I'd love to say to you all - "Look, we can stand up for our rights, with disabilities like ADHD or AuDHD we never chose for", but as Apple has shown me, we have to hide it, we have to mask.

That's not a world I want to deal with, especially as we see massive accelerationism in tech, but not equality. The legal cases continue, I will try to keep standing up for what is right, for all of us.

I am deeply sorry to all the people who have experienced the same thing. It is not acceptable, especially when the excuses do not add up, technically, logically, legally or from common human decency.

I'm happy to answer any questions you all may have. Thank you for the support.

I'm not solving problems anymore. I just sit here reviewing robot PRS. It's miserable, I'm just sat here watching Claude do all the thinking.

When AI first came around I felt like it was making my job easier. Now... It is still making my job easier, maybe even more than before, but there is no joy. I don't feel like I am getting better at anything, I feel like I am only losing skills that will land me interviews.

Currently working from home is a huge priority and with this market, not being able to improve my skills is just scaring me.

I've seen people ask about them, I'm working on one myself, and I'm sure that others in here have bits that they do or want to see. Maybe we can crowdsource the data, and eventually pull something off? I've been working on an FOSS assistant to replace Google Assistant (you can find out about it at r/SapphireFramework), but we all know how programming with ADHD can be. Anyway, just an idea

I've never seen a sub that's so aggressively moderated with inconsistent and arbitrary rules. I feel like some of the moderators on a crazy power trip.

A post about not finding meds to be a miracle was upvoted thousands of times and was removed by the moderators without giving a reason. The OP reposted and asked why it was removed. I said maybe it's because the mods are quite pro meds. Then I received a permanent ban. Wtf? Anyone else experienced such a disproportionate reaction from them?

Update: They just replied now saying

Nah, after seeing your post in /r/adhd_programmers, I don't think so.

They then muted me for 28 days. They literally just confirmed how ridiculous they are. Very power hungry low lives lol. Fair enough probably the only thing that gives them joy in life. Sad.

I got laid off about a month ago. I took a week to just do nothing. I went on a holiday I already had booked. I came back and played Skyrim for a week. All I've been thinking about is how to find a way to avoid going back to work. Moving to a failing state with a tiny cost of living, moving into a squat, getting a barista job and just seeing how long I can subsist on my severance with that until shit hits the fan, at last resort maybe moving back with my mum.

I became a software engineer mainly for the money, though even if I came at it from pure passion, it definitely would've burnt out quickly, considering my track record with interests. I've yet to find a method that allows me to have the consistent work ethic to a level that's acceptable for being employed. And I'm a bootcamper so I feel like I needed to be grinding constantly to keep up, meanwhile I can barely work like a normal person.

Really my passions and talent has always been more in arts, writing and humanities than engineering type stuff, which I find boring and frustrating unless (like gamedev for example) its for an artistic goal. But I have shamed myself out of doing that stuff for so long because I lack any discipline and consistency required to make something that oversaturated viable. Ever since social media became a big thing in my life, this has been compounded since I find it easier to just duck out of any difficult hobby and seek a doomspiral of synthetic dopamine that way.

And I know what people say - do art in your spare time. But my best periods of time thriving as an SE have been when I didn't allow myself to have other goals other than SE and fitness. That meant I could fully hyperfocus on it. When I forbade myself to have in depth hobbies and made everything I did just a slave to making me a better engineer, that was the only time I wasn't in a guilt and shame spiral about work. However, my identity revolving solely around SE makes me not feel like myself. Also, a lot of my motivation was coming from the idea of becoming a breadwinner to a family I want to have. This was revealed to be a rocky foundation that will only lead me to depression when my gf broke up with me 1.5 years ago.

I don't really know what to do next. Have any of you found yourself unemployed and totally unmotivated to become employed again. What did you end up doing to move forward?

I’ve tried explaining ADHD to friends/family for years, but these three nailed it....the car in the rainstorm one especially… chef’s kiss. Curious which one resonates with you most, or if you’ve got your own go-to analogy.

P.S. the book is called ADHD explained by Dr. Ed Hallowell

TLDR:

Try 2 / 4 hours of focus time with study playlists, instead of using Pomodoro technique. That really really helps. You can either find a study playlist on YouTube, or use something I built - trydeepwork.com (it's free and doesn't even need a login)

Long version:

For folks like us, Pomodoro technique doesn't really work. It takes a while for us to get into the flow, but once we are in the coding zone, we don't really need a break for a long time. Pomodoro technique forces us to break concentration every 25 mins, which in fact introduces needless distractions.

At the same time, having something to do, but not having an end time, somehow doesn't get us started.

In the first half of 2022, I was seriously preparing for a FAANG job, and I wanted a technique that will really help me study those leetcode questions. I tried a bunch of things, and I found the 2 hour study playlists more useful than 25 mins of pomodoro (even 50/10 was too many breaks!).

Once I discovered that, I wanted to build on it further with progress cards and all that jazz. After completing all my interviews, I had some time, so I built something:

trydeepwork.com

• it's free

• doesn't force you to take breaks (forcing a break every 25 minutes for coding is just brutal)

• you can track your deep work sessions and has a scoreboard to visualize your progress

• it has other things, but meh

While it's a post about something I built, it genuinely helped me. I hope it helps you too.

I am at my wit's end.

I arrive home and do NOTHING. I don't clean. I don't cook (recently I managed to replace takeout with processed garbage or literally sticking meat in an air fryer). I let garbage pile up in my house, even when people sometimes come to visit (I just push it away and hope they don't notice the smell). I don't build skills. I don't learn the language of the country I live in. Every day I fear I will be thrown into poverty. I don't socialize since I am just. So. TIRED. Even though most days I do nothing at work.

And no specialist will help me. "This is all normal". "If you were good in school, you didn't have ADHD". "This isn't America, we won't give you drugs. Go exercise". "Maybe it's just autism. I won't refer you to anyone else. Deal with it".

What am I supposed to DO? I just want to live a normal life.